BEFORE THE COMMITTEE OF THE SENATE 

ON THE 

Quadri-Centennial Celebration of the Discovery of America, 

Washington, January nth, 1890. 



Arguments for the City of New York* 

BV 

Hon. Chauncey M. Depevv, 

Chairman of the Committee on Legislation, 

Hon. BOURKE CoCKRAN, 

Ex-Member of Congress, 
I 

Hon. Warner Miller, 

Ex-U. S. Senator, 

James T. Wood, 

President of the New York State Agricultural Society. 

Presentation of the Memorial by W. E. D. Stokes, 
Secretary of the Committee on Legislation. 



ISSUED BY 



The Committee for the International Exposition of 1892 

Of the Citv of New York. 
Hon. HUGH J. GRANT, Mayor, Chairman. " W. McM. SPEER, Secretary. 



DOUGLAS TAYLOR. PRINTER 
JANUARY. 1890 



.N 52. 



Four bills were introduced in Congress for holding the 
World's Fair, severally locating it in different cities. They 
A»ere referred to a special committee, of which Senator 
Frank Hiscock is Chairman. 



Days for a hearing were assigned by the Committee to 
the different cities, and they were heard at the Capitol as 
follows : 

On AVednesday, the 8th January, 1890, the City of St. 
Louis by Governor Francis and Col. C. H. Jones, Chairman 
of their World's Fail" Committee. 

On Friday, the 10th, the City of Washington by Alex- 
ander I>. Anderson, Myron M. Parker, John W. Powell, 
Felix Agnus and John W. Douglas. 

On Saturday morning the lith, the City of New York ; 
and 

On Saturday afternoon the City of Chicago by Mayor D. 
C. Cregier, Hon. Thomas B. Bryan and Edward T. Jeffrey. 

The proceedings on Saturday morning, when New York 
was heard, are given in this pamphlet. 

One hundred members of the New York General Com- 
mittee were present. 

On the invitation of President Harrison the delegation 
were received at the Executive Mansion at 4 o'clock in the 
afternoon. In the evening, at a reception given by Repre- 
sentatives Flower and Belden, the delegation met the 
Senators and Members of the House and the other visitors 
to the City. 



Argument by Chauncey M. Depew before the United 

States Senate Committee, January 11th, on the 
Quadri-Centennial Celebration. 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Committee : 

The New York delegation expresses its thanks to the 
Committee for according to it a hearing on a day when so 
many could attend. We are here to the number of over a 
hundred Most of the delegates leave large business inter- 
ests and pressing duties at home, and they fairly represent 
the activities and enterprise of New York City and State. 
The object of their visit is to impress upon you the claims 
of New York for the World's Fair of 1892. 

Any American who visited the great Exhibition at Pans 
last summer was impressed with the fact that there was a 
great necessity upon the people of the United States m the 
near future to have one which would be equal, if not better. 
It was in aU respects the most superb collection of the evi- 
dences of the development of different nations m their arts, 
industries and mechanical work which has ever been 
gathered The nations of Continental Europe, of Asia, o± 
Africa of Great Britain and her dependencies round the 
globe, 'of Mexico and the South American Repubhcs, in 
their buildings and in their exhibits, presented superb 
illustrations of their products and skill. 

The United States alone was utterly deficient m any ade- 
quate representation of its resources, its inventions or its 
mechanical powers. The impression left upon the repre- 
sentatives of the different peoples of the earth was that 
America might have vast area, great population and tree 
institutions, but that for commercial purposes, in the inter- 
change of commodities which the world needed, or m sup- 
plying those which were required by its different markets, 
she was unequal to the competition mth older nations. 



The main attraction of the American exhibit was petrified 
wood from Arizona. An English Delegate, desiring to 
relieve my mortification, said: "Your country's exhibit 
of petrified wood is unequalled in this Fair." The effect 
of this has been to do incalculable injury to our commercial 
future. The commissions appointed by the several govern- 
ments and the merchants from all parts of the globe carried 
back to their people accounts of the products and manu- 
factures which cannot fail to be enormously beneficial to 
the countries wliich were properly represented, and injuri- 
ous to the United States. It will take a quarter of a cen- 
tury by the ordinary methods of trade to place the United 
States properly before the world. 

THE FAIR A NECESSITY. 

The largest manufacturing nation is compelled in the 
most marked and the quickest way to exhibit its resources 
and skill. This can only be done by an international fair 
in the United States so comprehensive as to fitly present 
all that we have and all that we can do, and so broadly 
national and hospitable as to invite and secure the attend- 
ance of every other nation. So that at the threshold of 
this discussion we must dismiss the fallacy which has been 
urged by the advocates of St. Louis and Chicago, that this 
is a national and not an international fair. Unless inter- 
national there is no purpose in holding it. The marvelous 
development of transpoi'tation lines and methods of rapid 
communication within the United States has put into the 
possession of every market so intelligently the products 
and opportunities of every other market, that no purely 
national fair Avould either add to our information or to our 
prosperity. 

It is in this sense of an international fair, held for the 
j)urpose of impressing upon the world the fact that we can 
supply the articles needed for its necessities and its luxuries, 
as well and as artistically made, and as cheaply sold as 
they can be purchased anywhere else, that New York be- 



5 

comes the only place where such an exhibition can be suc- 
cessfully held. All the visitors from abroad will come first 
to New York. If, in addition to the 3,000 miles of ocean 
travel, there is presented to them the further necessity of 
breaking bulk, and travelling with their goods a thousand 
miles into the interior, it would deter many of them from 
coming. 

The experience and the expense of the carrying of goods 
and of persons among the older nations of the world is 
such as to make them dread great distances of land travel, 
carrying with them valuable and bulky goods. It has been 
urged that, because only 125,000 Americans visited the 
Fair at Paris, and possibly not more than 75,000 foreigners 
would visit the Fair in America, they are not to be con- 
sidered as an important element in the success of the under- 
taking. 

WHAT THE FOREIfiNER REPRESENTS. 

But, while there will probably be BO, 000, 000 of visitors 
to the Exposition, whose gate money will pay its expenses, 
and whose presence will attract the merchant, the manu- 
facturer and the artist to exhibit, the 100,000 foreign- 
ers who may be there will represent hundreds of millions 
of people, to whom they are to carry a favorable or an un- 
favorable report of the commercial opportunities of the 
United States. We have had recently in Washington two 
congresses, one the Pan-American, and the other the Mari- 
time, which numbered less than lOC^delegates to each, and 
yet the one was the expression of the statesmanship and 
the commercial aspirations of Mexico and the South Ameri- 
can republics, and the other represented authoritatively 
the positioQ upon questions affecting the great highways of 
commerce upon the ocean, the opinions to be crystallized 
into international law, of all the maritime nations of the 
globe. So the Commissioners from the various States, and 
the keen-eyed merchants who bring their wares, will cany 
back to every port which a steamer can enter or where a 
flag can float, the story of the vast resources, of the won- 



o 



6 



derful inventions, of the unequalled mechanical sHiU, of 
the enormous surplus of manufactiired products to be 
stimulated by opportunity, which the world wants and 
which America wants to sell. 

METEOPOLIS SPELLS SUCCESS. 

No fair has ever been successful unless held in the metropo- 
lis of the nation which authorized the exhibition. When 
fi'eed from sectional ambitions or jealousies at home, we 
view with impartial eye the situation abroad, we all admit 
that exhibitions held for Great Britain at Liverpool or 
Manchester, for France at Lyons or Marseilles, for Italy at 
Florence or Naples, for Germany at Dresden or Leipzig, 
would be failures ; while it has been demonstrated from 
past experience that exhibitions held at the metropolis of 
any country, like London or Paris, are successful in attract- 
ing all that there is of the country in which the city is 
located, as well as the world besides. 

I saw two years ago an attempted Universal Exposition 
at Liverpool, and, while excellent in every way, it attracted 
little attention even in Great Britain ; while two local 
exhibitions held within the past three years in London, one 
called "The Healtheries," and the other called "The 
Italian," were almost equal to the French Fair of last Sum- 
mer in attendance, in value and variety of exhibits, and in 
results. This was due to the great resident population 
within cheap and quick transit, and the vast number of 
strangers always present in London, and who made part of 
the daily crowds at the fairs. 

No one will dispute that New York is the metropolis of 
this continent. Its poi^ulation, its resources, the representa- 
tive character of its business, the fact that three-fourths 
of the imports of the country come to its harbor, all make 
it such. 

NEW YORK THE PULSE OF THE COUNTRY. 

There is not a cotton or woollen mill, a furnace, forge or 
factory, a mine at work or projected in the United States, 
which does not have its principal office in the City of New 



York. There is no project of any kind, wliether to build 
a railroad to bring agricultural territory into settlement and 
market, to develop the resources of the new South, to open 
iron or coal veins in Virginia, Tennessee or Alabama, which 
does not pass all other places and come to New York. If 
it is unsuccessful there it goes nowhere else. The conven- 
tions of all the trades, which are annually held for mutual 
benefit, take place in New York, and are all closed with an 
annual banquet, which I invariably attend. A panic in 
New York is the paralysis of the country. Prosperity in 
New York means immense freight upon the railways, and 
enormous production from farm and factory and mine. 
New York does not influence, but simply records as the 
barometer the conditions of trade and production all over 
the country. 

To make a fair successful, a population immediately in 
contact is absolutely necessary. The French Fair had its 
thirty millions of visitors, and its 200,000 a day, because it 
was in the midst of a great resident population, which, for 
a few cents, and with the least loss of time, could repeat- 
edly visit the Exhibition. St. Louis and Chicago present 
the most fallacious of arguments in their famous "circles 
of population." A circle about St. Louis, of /jOO miles to the 
Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean, may have twenty- 
seven millions. A similar circle about Chicago, to the 
North Pole and the Pacific Ocean, may have twenty -five 
millions. A similar circle about New York may have 
twenty-two millions. A similar drcle about Washington 
may have twenty millions, and without much difficulty we 
shall have, by this process of calculation, for the purposes 
of this Fair within these circles three or four hundred mil- 
lions of people, and yet not include over one-half of the 
present located population of the United States. 

what's the matter with peekskill? 
A similar circle drawn with Peekskill as a centre — a 
village upon the Hudson where I was born — takes in the 
Hudson Eiver and the Mohawk valleys with their con- 



8 

tiniious villages and cities and unequalled scenery, includes 
New York, Boston and Philadelphia, New Haven, Hart- 
ford and Baltimore, and presents a compact population 
which in wealth, in ability to travel, in appreciation of 
exhibitions and determination to visit them, is unequalled 
anywhere in the country. But then, Peekskill is deiicient 
in hotel accommodations and in internal lines of travel 
necessary to carry vast masses to a fair ground and to take 
them comfortably away. Besides Peekskill is not here 
asking for the Fair. On the circle theory, the success of 
an exhibition is in populations in contact with the fair. 
Take a point centrally located at Jersey City, and draw 
about it a radius of diameter and extent equal to a line 
drawn from a point at Lake Michigan around the bound- 
aries of Chicago, and you have a larger population than 
there is in the City of Chicago. You cross the river by 
ferry, and you have on the island of Manhattan the City of 
New York, with 600,000 more people than there are in 
Chicago. You cross to Long Island by the Brooklyn Bridge, 
and a circle again thrown out, covering again the same teri-i- 
tory on Long Island as is included in the boundaries of 
Chicago, has more population than there is in Chicago. 

THREE CHICAGOES AND A HALF. 

So that, within what might properly be called the City of 
New York, there are three Chicagoes and a half. Then, if 
you take Central Park as a centre, and within a radius of 
200 miles, including the distance where people can come in 
the morning and go back at night, there are 8,000,000 of 
people. The lunch basket and dinner pail brigade, who are 
the real suppoi'ters of a fair, and can get there and return 
home for a minimum of 5 cents and a maximum of $2, to 
the number of not less than 8,000,000, are tributary to the 
New York Exhibition. That of itself makes it a phenom- 
enal success, and can be met by no similar fact from any 
other place on the American continent. 

The transportation question is one little understood, 



because it has been little studied. The success of the Pans 
Exposition was largely due to its location upon a park 
which had been reserved for military purposes m the heart 
of Paris, and was accessible from populous centres by a ten 
to twenty minutes' walk and by every line of transporta- 
tion in the city. On any important day there will be 
present at the Exhibition at the time it closes 200,000 
people It is absolutely essential that an exhibition be 
closed at a specified hour, when the curtains are drawn over 
the booths and the ropes across the avenues inside the 
o-rounds. Then 200,000 hungry, tired, cross people, many 
with babies and young children, are discharged from the 
various exits, wild to get to their homes and lodging houses 
or to catch outgoing trains and steamboats. 

A steam railroad, conducting its ordinary business, could 
run every five minutes a train of ten cars, carrying sixty 
people each, or 7,000 an hour. A cable road could do 
alwut the same on a headway of two minutes; snrface roads 
uot quite so well. It would not be possible, in any place 
where they think of locating the Fair in either St. Louis or 
Chicago, to discharge over 25,000 people an hour, and that 
would take for your 200,000 people eight hours. The first 
day of the block would be the last of the Fair. 

NEW YORK'S TRANSPORTATION FACILITIES. 

llip location of New York upon an island makes it won- 
derfully adapted to. the easy distribution of large masses of 
people' The Museum buildings in the Central Park are in 
the centre of population, and the locations outside of the 
Park will be in easv and near connection by electnc roads 
There are seven lines of horse cars, two lines of elevated 
roads, and two lines of steam railroads connected with the 
ground. These carry New York Central trains to the 
interior of the State and the West, Harlem trains up the 
territory back of the Hudson, and New Haven, Boston & 
Albany and New York & New England trains to New 
England In addition, a twenty minutes walk, or, with 



10 



the transportation which would be provided, a ten minutes' 
ride to the river on either side, furnishes the piers and 
doclcs where steamboats and ferries can transport them up 
and down the Hudson, to Staten Island, to Long Island, up 
the Sound, and across to Jersey City to the network of 
roads which run out from there to all parts of the country. 
Few of the promoters of this great enterprise have con- 
templated the enormous responsibility which the city 
assumes which undertakes to make it successful. The 
French Exposition cost, in round niimbers, ten millions of 
dollars. Of this, five million was conti'ibuted by the Gov- 
ernment of France and the City of Paris, and four million 
raised by a lottery, and the rest by the sale of concessions, 
the grounds being entirely contributed by the city. With 
the differences in cost of labor and material we must add 
thirty per cent. It would be unsafe to begin a fair unless 
at least thirteen millions of dollars were pledged. So far as 
I have been able to ascertain, Chicago and St. Louis have 
each about four millions which might be called available. 
New York has a guarantee fund of live millions of dollars, 
subscribed under a contract which is binding upon the sub- 
scribers and their estates. 

" MONEY MAKES THE FAIR GO." 

The Committee on Legislation have unanimously adopted 
a bill asking the Legislature to authorize the City of New 
York to expend ten millions of dollars in buildings and 
grounds. There is no doubt about this authorization. Fart 
of it will go for the completion of the Museum of Natural 
History and of the Museum of Art, to the completion of 
both of which the city is already pledged. This will fur- 
nish fifty-two acTes of floor room in fire-proof buildings. 
These buildings will be connected, through the subway 
which adjoins them, by an electric road, and over it a 
promenade can be built which will present a horticultural 
garden of unequalled beauty; while in the grounds north 
of the Park, which comprise Morningside and Riverside 



11 

Parks and lands already promised, there are several hun-" 
dred acres more for machinery hall and such other struc- 
tures as may be required for the purj^oses of the Exhibition. 
'New York, therefore, comes here, not only as the metropo- 
lis of the coiintry, not only as the p:ateway to the continent, 
not only with the unequalled location where the ships can 
sail to the docks adjoining the Exhibition, but with the 
money pledged which makes the Fair an unquestioned 
success. 

THE city's TREASURE HOUSES. 

Besides, New York has in her two museums art treasures 
exhibiting the progress of civilization for thousands of 
years, which have cost $5,000,000 and are of priceless value. 
These could not be transj^orted to any other place. Then 
the wealth and opportunity of a century have accumulated 
in New York in private collections, treasures gathered 
from the monuments and tombs of the ancients, from the 
sales of rare collections in Europe and the dispersion of 
galleries and art treasures, which, in the aggregate, are not 
equalled in any city in the world. All these, in the fire- 
proof buildings of the Museum of Art, would be available 
for the piirposes of this Exhibition, to make it a phenom- 
enal triumph. 

The Exhibition will be held from May to November. 
During that period at Washington, at St. Louis, at Chicago, 
it is a question of pajamas and palm-leaf fans. But an 
exhibition requires comfortable clothing, and the disposi- 
tion and the physical power to move fast and far. St. Louis 
admits the phenomenal heat of the Democratic Convention 
of 1884, which ended National conventions thereafter being- 
held within her borders. Chicago claims that Lake Mich- 
igan is her refrigerator and her reseiToir. While gasj^ing 
for breath one midnight in the great Lake City, with my 
pajamas hanging on the bedpost, I remarked to my Chicago 
friend : " What is the matter with the refrigerator V' He 
said : "In every well regulated household there are occa- 
sions when the hired man neglects to put the ice in the box." 



12 



NKW YORK AS A SUMMER RESOET. 

During the months of July and August the sweltering 
foreigner, Avishing to see the inhabitants of tliese cities, 
would lind them in New York and the sea coast adjacent. 
New York has become the largest watering place in the 
world. The ante-bellum Southerner, if he passed the White 
Sulphur Springs, went to Saratoga, to the White Moun- 
tains, to Sharon Springs ; but the New South comes to 
New York, where it can drive in Central Park, stand on 
the Brooklyn Bridge on moonlight nights, sail up and dowai 
the unequalled bay and the unrivalled Hudson, go to Coney 
Island or Long Branch and take a plunge in the surf, and 
enjoy the forty theatres and one himdred concert halls, 
which furnish amusement in the evening. 

Twenty-live thousand strangers for comfort, fifty thousand 
at the outside, would be the limit of St. Louis. The Repub- 
lican Convention last June in Chicago, which brought pos- 
sibly a hundred thousand, crowded the town to the extent of 
discomfort — I remember it crowded me — while the Centen- 
nial of the Inauguration of George Washington last April 
in New York lirought there a million of visitors, who were 
amply accommodated, and added scarcely a visible addi- 
tion to the enormous crowds which are the normal charac- 
teristic of the metropolis. At Coney Island, at Long 
Branch, at Rockaway, at Long Beach, at the innumerable 
l)laces of resort within an hour of the city, a million of 
people can be comfortably accommodated over night, with 
the attractions of surf and air unequalled anywhere else 
upon the coast, and unknown in the interior. 

The Exhibition fails in one of its objects unless it is edu- 
cational. American artisans, mechanics and working men 
and women can there see the best results in metals, in 
wood and in textile fabrics from the shops and looms of 
tlie world. Expensive transportation will prevent their 
visiting a fair, but steamships in which they can be cheaply 
carried and housed will bring them from all along the 
Atlantic coast to the gates of the New York Fair. 



13 



The Southern Society in New York has ™oi. member 
than there are in any club in any city m the South- T^ e 
Ohio Society of New York numbers more f'^^^'ff^'^ 
than any club in the cities of that State, --f^^-^jf^^l; 
nished one of its members to be Ohio's next United States 
Senator. The same is true of the Pacific Coasr, and of he 
West and Northwest. There are in New York "-- lu.h 
than in Dublin, more Germans than m any city m (xe i- 
many, save two ; and Italians enough to make o^e of the 
group of cities third in population m Italy, ^e^ Yo;k^ 
with her harbor, her Hudson and East rivers, her Biooklyn 
Bddge and Bartholdi Statue of Liberty, her museums 
parks and theatres, her race courses and seaside resorts, i^ 
alone ihe most attractive exhibition on the American con- 

*"politics have been suggested. The bugaboo of Tam- 
many, with the tiger's head, the shining teeth, the wlnsk 
Tm tail and the polished claws, stands on a national pla^ 
fo™ facing the Republican party. Well, I have lived all 
mrilfe right under those claws, and every once ma while 
w J pull them. The idea is that some of the ten millions or 
Torrexpenditure which this Fair is to --te, -y ge 
into the hands of Tammany and enable it to hold the S ate 
of New York during the next four years, and *o caiij it 
•n 1892 But undei the bill which we have dratted the 
expenditure of the money is left entirely m the hands of 
the corporators named in the bill now on your desk-103 
men of whom 60 are RepubUcans and the rest are Demo- 
S o all shades. But they are all gentlemen of hono 
and integrity, who would assume the responsibilities of 
this trust as a public duty. 

It has been alleged against New York that she has no 
local pride That is true. London has no local pnde. 
Paris ha no local pride. Imn.ense aggregations of people 
^om different parts of the country, and largely i-epresenta 
t^ve of different sections, do not have local pnde. But the 
peop'e of New York do know (with their large views) what 



14 



the Exhibition sliould be, and we are here to urge the 
selection of New York, not because we are New Yorkers, 
but because we want tlie Fair to be a phenomenal national 
success. 

THE METROPOLIS ABOVE JEALOUSY. 

While there has been some chaff and ridicule and rail- 
lery and pleasantry in the discussion of the claims of 
Washington and St. Louis, of Chicago and New York, I 
can say for New York that thei'e has been no feeling other 
than the warmest, the kindest and the most respectful for 
those other cities and their ambitions. We appreciate the 
public buildings and the unequalled situation of Washing- 
ton ; the history, the location in the Mississippi Valley 
and the f utiire of St. Louis ; and the marvelous growth, 
expansion and development, not only in commerce and 
trade, but in all the elements which constitute a great city, 
of art and culture, of Chicago. 

Wherever the Fair may go, New York, so far as a great 
city like that can, will do her best to make it a success. 
But if this Committee will dismiss all claims of locality, 
all efforts to add to the prosperity of a city or section, and 
look at the whole country, its needs and opportimities for 
the World's Fair, and the place where the whole country 
would be most benefited by the Exhibition, the decision 
cannot fail to be New York. 

If the Government should to-day appropriate to every 
family in the United States the money which would carry 
them to one place, with the distinct understanding that 
they could select no other, the vote, with an unanimity 
unequalled in the expression of desire, fi'om Maine to the 
Gulf, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, among fanners, 
ranchmen, mine-men, merchants, ai'tisans, professional 
men, journalists, artists, would be, "Take me to New 
York.'' 



15 
Remarks of Honorable Bourke Cockran. 

Mr. Cockran : 

Mr. Chairman and Gtentlemen of the Committee : 
It seems to me that at the threshold of this discussion lies, 
the question — Where can this Fair be held? If it be 
decided that there is more than one available site, then the 
competition of the various cities may be permitted to 
begin. 

After hearing the speech of Mr. Depew, and after hearing 
the reasons which he has spread before this Committee, it 
is difficult to conceive how anybody could contend that 
there is more than one city at which an exposition of this 
character can be held. If Mr. Depew has not convinced the 
Committee that the Exposition must necessarily be held in 
the City of New York, it were idle to attempt further dis- 
cussion of the subject. Apart from the considerations of 
expediency, convenience and pecuniary success, there are 
also, from the very nature of the undertaking, many 
reasons why the Exposition should be held within the City 
of New York ; indeed, I may be permitted to suggest that 
the very object and scope of this Exhibition has been some- 
what lost to sight in the rivalry with which various muni- 
cipalities have contended for the honor of being designated 
as the theatre of the display. 

I do not believe that this Exposition should be confined 
to a mere display of the material wealth of this country. 
I do not believe that its puiiaose should be the i^rovoking of 
a spirit of envy in the minds of visitors from other coun- 
tries. I think it has a broader and grander aspect than the 
mere display of our resources and the I'esults of our indus- 
try. What is it that we are to celebrate ? We are called 
upon to commemorate not a mere voyage across the Atlantic 
Ocean ; not merely the courage of a navigator who con- 
fronted perils which were unknown and terrible by reason 
of their uncertainty ; not merely the venturesome spirit 



16 



whicli surmounted the difficulties which beset his path; not 
merely the discovery of a new world; but we will celebrate 
the new birth of the whole world, the beginning of a new 
era. the destruction of the ancient notions of glory and the 
ancient notions of what constituted fame ; the advent of 
that higher and grander civilization which believes that the 
spirit of commei'ce has bred a more glorious chivalry than 
any that existed during the dark ages. I think I may say, 
Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Committee, that when 
in April, 1493, Christopher Columbvis, a commoner who 
had not signalized himself by prowess or deeds of valor in 
the field involving the destruction of property, the murder 
of human beings, the shedding of blood, the sacking of 
towns or the burning of villages, but who had accomplishd 
a peaceful triumph over the forces of nature and the dark- 
ness of ignorance — when he was permitted to appear 
seated in the presence of Ferdinand and Isabella at Barce- 
lona, that moment witnessed the destruction of the ancient 
notions of honor and fame and the birth of what may be 
deemed the commercial era ; and that is the great event 
which we have to commemorate by our Exposition in 
1892. 

Mr. Chairman, if we look over the aspect of the world 400 
years ago, this statement will not appear exaggerated. It is 
a remarkable thing that the whole course of events in the 
Old World seems to have prepared the event which we are 
now about to commemorate. Feudalism had expired every- 
where. Ten years before Christopher Columbus had dis- 
covered America Louis XI. had laid down and died. The 
work of his life had been the destruction of the power of 
the old French nobility. Henry VII. had Just called a 
Parliament in England to which, I believe, but twenty- 
seven barons had responded, all the chivalry and feudal 
power of England having been destroyed in the Wars of 
the Roses. Ferdinand and Isabella had consolidated the 
power of Sjjain, and the privileges of the Spanish cities and 
the power of the Spanish chiefs were crushed a few years 



17 

afterwards by the standing armies and iron purpose of 
Charles V. 

But if feudalism had been crushed absolutism reigned 
supreme. Absolute monarchy was more hostile to liberty 
than feudal institutions. The change was not, therefore, 
an immediate step towards liberty. The discovery of a new 
land by Christopher Columbus opened the field to which 
men fled from suppression in pursuit of an opportunity for 
independent labor. They here learned the lesson that in- 
dustry could flourish only in the light of freedom, and on 
this continent they kindled a lamp which shed its light 
across the sea into the darkest recesses of the Old World, 
awakening the minds of men to a proper conception of the 
inestimable fruits of liberty and independence. Wherever 
in the Old World cities were permitted to flourish, there 
the light of liberty was first beheld — that liberty which has 
continued to grow until, in this century, it has shattered 
thrones, overturned dynasties and made kingcraft a lost 
science. The growth of cities has been the direct result of 
Columbus's discovery. The impetus which it lent to com- 
merce stimulated ship building, inspired industry and 
developed trade. With the growth of wealth grew the 
determination to acquire those political rights which alone 
make wealth secure. In cities the cradle of liberty has 
been rocked. Every revolution against despotism had its 
birth and guiding impulse in the crowded marts of com- 
merce. The train bands of London recruited the armies of 
the English Parliament ; the Faubourg St. Antoine sounded 
the tocsin which awakened the French people from the leth- 
argy in which they had slumbered for two centuries. The 
seed dropped in the soil which was discovered by Columbus 
has taken root and grown and flourished. It has attracted 
the attention of the whole world and caused the people of 
every nation to turn their steps into the pathway which 
leads to democratic institutions and free government. If 
this is to be an Exposition of the growth and genius of 
commerce, it must then necessarily occur in the chief city 



18 



of the western hemispliei'e. When we ask that this Fair be 
located in New York, we simply ask you to be consistent 
with the events that yon are attempting to celebrate, and 
we would ask you in determining the site to be guided by 
a determination to present to the people of other climes the 
best evidence, the concrete pi'oof of all the great results 
which have flown from the memorable voyage which 
Columbus made in 1492. 

Do you suppose if you select New York you can ignore 
any of the features of this country which have made that 
city what it is — do you suppose there can be a rivalry 
when it comes to the exhibit of cities themselves between 
New York and any other city in the United States. When 
we consider that branch of this subject which Mr. Depew 
describes as the circle theory, the capacity of hotels to 
accommodate thronging hosts of visitors, the means of 
transportation to and from the fair grounds, we have, it 
seems to me, gentlemen of the Committee, but the smallest 
side of the question which is presented to you. From these 
aspects of the case, however. New York stands without 
rivalry, and without a competitor. As she has been 
described by the president of pei'haps the greatest railroad 
system in the world, she has been so favored by nature in 
her location that there can be no doubt about her capacity 
to provide for the physical comfort of those who visit the 
Exposition. There is no rivalry between New York, St. 
Louis and Chicago; their claims cannot be considered as 
capable of being weighed in the same balance. There is, 
however, an argument in favor of holding the Exposition in 
Washington. It is a serious one and I think it will 
merit some consideration and veiy careful consideration by 
this body. 

I regret that the expression ' ' claims of cities ' ' should 
enter into a question so important as this, but that appears 
to be the phraseology adopted by general consent and I 
use it for the purpose of this discussion. Washington 
claims that she should have the Exposition on the ground 



19 



that it is the seat of government, and one eloquent gentle- 
man declared that no exhibition could be held with a 
proper regard to the principles of etiquette unless it were 
held within this City, and I believe he asserted that the 
nice technicalities of etiquette which should be observed 
between this country and foreign countries required that 
the President in his own national city should welcome the 
visitors from all over the globe in the capital city of the 
country. That argument might be strong and conclusive if 
it were addressed to a body representing a governmental 
system which claimed to be something more than an instru- 
mentality to carry out the public will. The resources, the 
growth, the progress of this country are not due to any 
direct action on the part of the government. The govern- 
ment is but the machinery by- which our constitutional 
system is carried into operation. What is this government 
which we intend to exhibit to the people who attend the 
Exposition who may come here to study our mechanical 
genius and our commercial development as well as the con- 
stitutional system under which both have flourished. Does 
it consist of the honorable body of which you gentlemen 
are members ? Is the government framed that a President 
may sit in the mansion at the other end of the avenue, that 
a body equal to yours in influence, composed of gentlemen 
your equals in intelligence, may sit at the other end of this 
capitol, that judges may wear ermine, that titles may be 
prefixed to the names of citizens ? No ! This government is 
but a compact, novel in that it is founded upon the eternal 
principles of justice, a government that is but a bond be- 
tween all the elements that compose the nation, providing 
that in all their relations with each other they will be gov- 
erned by the princii:)les of equity and justice, and the 
various departments which dot the surface of this city are 
but the instruments that carry out that compact. These 
instrumentalities are the subjects of popular power and not 
its source, they do not even exercise a controlling power 
over the daily lives of our citizens. 



20 



Now the exhibit which we can make in the City of New 
York differs from any exhibit which can be made by Wash- 
ington or by any other city of the country. We can show 
the world a city at the gateway of western commerce which 
within a few years has attained its present eminence. It is 
old in its fonndatiou, but its commercial importance is of 
comparatively recent growth ? It is a city that numbers 
within its corporate limits 1,700,000 inhabitants, and 
beyond the river that surrounds it it is belted by a series of 
cities, some of them greater than any of the competing 
cities that ask to have this Fair phiced within their corpo- 
rate limits. 

Mr. Depew has shown you the extent and importance of 
this great commercial metropolis, but we can show some- 
thing which is beyond and above all mere displays of 
riches, beyond the magnificent rows of buildings devoted to 
commerce and industry, beyond the splendid edifices 
devoted to worship, beyond the palaces that line the resi- 
dential streets where opulence and wealth are housed, beyond 
the wharves crowded with the vessels of the world, from 
which hang the flags of all nations rising and falling with 
every breeze, beyond the banks whose vaults are bursting 
with accumulated gold, beyond every type and sign of 
wealth we can show the substantial fruits of that liberty 
which forms and opens up the sole avenue to wealth which 
mankind can afford to keep open. Our City rises on the 
borders of the sea which Columbus conquered and no Ex- 
position can pi'operly carry out the idea of this great event 
which is not held within sight of that ocean where the navi- 
gator won his victory, as well as in the presence of the land 
which he gave to civilization and which has been made the 
home of progress and the cradle of liberty. 

Now if you ask where a fair may be held, I am not pre- 
pared to say but that Chicago, or St. Louis, or Cincinnati, 
or Duluth (immortalized forever by the wit and eloquence 
of Mr. Knott ) can within these two years prepare for the 
mere housing of a crowd or for the mere entertainment of vis- 



21 



itors,yet that is not tlie essential requisite of an exposition. 
Tliis great enterprise is not undertaken with the idea of ex- 
posing something to the sun, or moon, or the stars, but 
rather to expose tlie condition of the country to the eyes of 
manlvind, to expose it in a way that may illustrate what 
this world is to-day compared with what this world was 
when Columbus's voyage was first begun and the founda- 
tions of modern commerce were laid in his genius, his en- 
terprise and his courage. And as this immense develop- 
ment is illustrated and considered, men will naturally in- 
quire what it is that has made this progress possible, and 
the answer will be found not alone in the Exposition itself, 
but in the political condition of the country whose marvel- 
ous progress it will illustrate. In the light of its environ- 
ment it will pi'ove the wondei'ful benefit which mankind 
has derived from the development of commercial enterprise; 
it will illustrate the heroism, the genius, the courage and 
the resources of that commercial spirit which has been in- 
different to every danger, and which has surmounted every 
difficulty, which has penetrated into the dark recesses of 
unknown continents and has explored the pathless wastes 
of treacherous seas, which has brought the surface of the 
globe into cultivation and which is rapidly bringing man- 
kind into one common family, which has inspired men to 
accomplish wonders greater than those which have been at- 
tributed to the fabled heroes of romance. 

It is the liberty to enjoy the fruits of labor which has 
proved the stimulus to our industry and to our enterprise 
«nd in this Exposition of 1892 we shall celebrate the event 
which marked the first dawn of that liberty upon the 
world. 

If I dispute the right of Washington to this Fair, I do 
not desire to be understood as saying anything derogatory 
to that unique character which makes this city one of the 
most delightful in the world. In this capital city must 
for ever find expression some of the loftiest and best senti- 
ments that have ever been uttered anywhere on the face of 



22 

the globe, but the merit and the excellence which its ad- 
vocates justly claim for it are precisely the reasons why it 
should not be selected as a site for an intei^national expo- 
sition. The advocates of Washington claim that it is a 
neutral city, that it is the seat of the government, and as 
the government is the representative of all the States, this 
city is the city of all the States and is therefore the proper 
theatre for a display of all the fniits of the industry and 
genius of the people of the United States. To me it ap- 
pears that this peculiar character of Washington furnishes 
the strongest argument against its selection by Cougi-ess as 
the site of this exposition. It is because no privilege of the 
people, no right to peaceably enjoy the fruits of industry 
flow from this government as a favor that this government 
has no essential part in an exposition of this character. 
Did we live under other institutions, did we enjoy our lib- 
erties and privileges as the grant of a sovereign, as the 
fruits of his bounty and clemency, then all the wealth and 
all the achievements of the people might well be placed at 
his feet and the world might be asked to scrutinize them 
there. No person who crosses the sea to view this exj)o- 
sition, whether he stop for this purpose in the City of New 
York or whether he cross the thousand miles that intervene 
between our City and Chicago, who views the wonderful 
bounty of nature and beholds this people enjoying in full 
security all the benefits that it has pleased Providence to 
bestow upon them, not as a privilege granted by king or 
magistrate, but as a right to which they have been born, 
and who beholds the beneficent fruits of industry stimu-* 
lated and protected by liberty, will fail to come to this 
City and see the theatre in which our government operates. 
If this Exposition be held in New York no stranger will 
fail to visit Washington and the journey will be repaid by 
the sights of this neutral city, as it has been described by 
its representatives. 

Here the visitor will behold a Government which serves 
the people, but does not control them, which protects them, 



23 



but cannot oppress them, which is based upon such an ex- 
alted conception of popnhu- rights, that it has stood for a 
century a temple of liberty and a monument of progress. 
He will view its various departments all working for the 
public welfare, his eyes will be gratified by a view of that 
Senate which has become conspicuous in the eyes of the 
world as a body representative of the people, and yet not 
subject to popular caprice. 

He will see, in the long service of one of the members of 
this Committee, the refutation of the old slander that 
republics are ungrateful, and he will also learn that the 
confidence of American constituencies is controlled by dis- 
cernment as well as by gratitude. He will see that the 
confidence which has been extended by a constituency 
which embraces all the people of the United States with 
out interruption for more than a generation has been won 
by conspicuous and meritorious services. He will learn 
that the servant who has been retained in public life for 
thirty years has earned the distinction by the display of 
exalted virtue and enlightened patriotism in various ave- 
nues of the public service, and especially in that great 
department of the Government, which in the infancy of our 
republic was made the theatre of great financial achieve- 
ments, and which at a later period was administered by the 
Senator from Ohio, with such genius and patriotism, that 
we possess to-day the most prosperous treasury in the 
world, with vaults so rich, that the only burning question 
that divides our parties is the proper method of disposing 
<?f our surplus treasure. 

I take Senator Sherman, of Ohio, the oldest member of 
this Committee, as a type of the statesmanship of the com- 
mon people, which the visitor from abroad will notice as 
the distinguishing feature of our public life. Through the 
patriotism and sagacity of such representatives of the 
nation, he will learn that we have surmounted all the diffi- 
cult questions of finance, all the perplexing questions of 
statecraft which from time to time have arisen in the path- 



34 



way of the country. He will be amazed to find that through 
their guidance we have developed from a meagre popula- 
tion to a nation of sixty millions, repelled foreign invasion, 
quelled domestic insurrection, raised armies, equipped 
them, disarmed them and sent our soldiers back to the 
peaceful pursuits of industry without any disturbance to 
our i^olitical system ; funded an enormous debt, raised our 
credit to the high standard among the nations of the world, 
and all this with the aid of statesmen who sprang from the 
common people without that special education which in 
other countries is deemed essential to the discharge of the 
duties that pertain to public life. Nor is it in the Senate 
alone that the visitor will be impressed with the advantages 
of our Government. At the other end of the Capitol he 
will witness the proceedings of the most intelligent, the 
kindliest, the most patriotic, the best natured representa- 
tive body in the civilized world. From the legislative, the 
visitor will proceed to the judicial and executive depart- 
ments, he will follow their operation from the central seat 
of government through all their ramifications, until they 
come into contact with the daily lives of the people, and 
he will leave Washington with a better comprehension of 
the character of this Government than he could possibly 
acquire if his mind were bewildered by a conglomerate dis- 
play of things industrial which do not naturally pertain to 
Washington, and things political which find their natural 
home within the city. He will thoroughly appreciate that 
the Government is the servant of the peojjle, that it is a 
happily tuned instrument fully responsive to the expres- 
sion of public opinion, and he will also learn that in this 
country every man stands upon his own feet, and that in- 
dustry finds its best protection in its absolute security from 
governmental interference. 

An industrial exposition should properly take place in an 
industrial centre ; the government of this country can best 
be examined, studied and understood in this capital city 



25 



where it makes no pretense to interfere in the industrial 
concerns of the people. 

Mr. Chairman, we believe that the City of New York 
should present her views on this subject to this Committee. 
I think I may say for these gentlemen who ai'e here with 
me that we do not make any claim to this Exposition. I 
feel that I may ask all our sister cities to join with us in 
that same spirit of submission to the judgment of this 
body. We are here to assist this Committee in reaching a 
conclusion. Whatever that conclusion may be, we are 
ready to accept it as the best solution of this question. We 
do not ask that this ExjDosition be located in New York to 
gratify any feeling of pride which as citizens of New York 
we may cherish. The Exposition buildings of which Mr. 
Depew has spoken will be constructed by the city in any 
event. So far as this Exhibition might have any jierma- 
nent results, these results will be secured to the City of 
New York through the enterprise of her own citizens what- 
ever may be the location elected by Congress. They may 
not be built as quickly if the Exposition be located else- 
where, but if in the judgment of Congress it be deemed 
proper to hold it in New York, the bill that Mr. Depew has 
spoken of will be passed immediately through the Legisla- 
ture and instead of devoting four or live years to construct- 
ing these improvements they will be constructed in twelve 
months, and the expenditure will merely be anticiiiated. 
The City of New York has at present museums of art and 
natui'al history and a vast amount of park surface. If the 
Exposition be located in our city no additional park lands 
will be purchased, and if it be located elsewhere all these 
parks and buildings will still be possessed by the city. 

If 150,000 people a day visit the Exposition they wiU 
hai'dly be noticed on the streets or in the hotels. If the 
attendance should amount to a million, that vast throng 
can be accommodated in New York with perfect comfort to 
every one of them and without any interference with the 
citizens who depended upon their daily labors for a liveli- 



26 



hood. Indeed, I think that one of the most interesting 
sights that can be shown to a visitor is the vast array of 
two millions of human beings leaving their homes in the 
morning and retnrning to them at night by the laborers of 
each day increasing the sum of our wealth and adding to 
the general comfort and happiness. That sight can be 
seen daily in the great city which lies at the gateway of 
western commerce. It will be o£fered to the visitor who 
comes across the ocean, not as an evidence of our own pros- 
perity, not as a gratification of our own pride, but as con- 
vincing and striking proof of what the resources, the extent 
and the industry of that great country which lies behind 
us have done in building up a great metropolis, worthy of 
this nation and of the people who compose it. It is for 
these reasons that we ask this Committee to decide that 
New York is the proper site for the International Expo- 
sition. 

We do not present these views as a claim on the part of 
the city, but as a submission on the part of its citizens of 
such facts as are deemed by them proper that the Com- 
mittee should have in mind when they decide a question 
of such vast importance to the people of this country and 
to the people of the whole civilized world. 

The Chairman : The Committee will now take a recess. 

Thereupon (at 11 o'clock and 45 minutes A. M.) the Com- 
mittee took a recess until 15 minutes past 1 o'clock P. M. 



At the expiration of the recess the Committee resumed 
its session. 

The Chairman : I understand that Senator Miller and 
Mr. Wood will speak further in behalf of the New York 
case. When they have concluded the Mayor of Chicago, 
Mr. Cregier, and Mr. Bryan and Mr. Jeffrey will address 
the Committee in behalf of Chicago. 



27 

Remarks of Hon. Warner Miller. 

Mr. Miller: 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Committee : 
The reasons why New York is the most desirable place 
in America for the holding of a great International Fair in 
1892 have been so admirably presented here this morning 
that I should hesitate to mar the symmetry of the argu- 
ment which has been made by anything I might say, were 
it not for the deep personal interest that I feel in the suc- 
cess of this coming celebration, and because I know that 
the united people of the State and City of New York most 
earnestly desire that this Exposition shall be held in the 
City of New York. 

There is little that I can add to what has been already 
said. The three requisites for the holding of a grand Inter- 
national Fair have been presented here to-day most fully. 
First, that of its finances ; secondly, that of transportation 
facilities for handling the immense crowds of people who 
will attend it ; and thirdly, the ability of the city where it 
shall be held to properly house and comfortably care for 
the millions of people who will visit the Exposition. 

Upon those three points, Mr. Chairman, I feel confident 
in saying that no argument can be made against New York; 
that it meets all these conditions fully and frankly and 
beyond criticism. 

I do not undertake to say, however, that any other city in 
the Union might not do that as well. I am here not to speak 
against Chicago or against Washington or against St. Louis 
or against any other city which may be proposed, but 
simply to urge upon this Committee the reasons why, if in 
the judgment of the Congress of the United States the Fair 
should be placed in New York, Congress might feel that the 
Fair would be made a grand success. 

New York has been so quiet in the organization of its 
Committees for this Exposition and in its methods of raising 



28 



money and in fulfilling all the conditions that are neces- 
sary, that an impression has gone abroad that New York 
City and New York State do not care for the Fair; that 
they are rather indifferent regarding it. But I am sure 
that after the presentation which has been made here by 
the two gentlemen who have preceded me that that charge 
will no longer be made. 

New York has indulged in no flourish of trumpets. It 
has not gotten excited over this matter at all. The charac- 
ter of its population is such that it does not easily take fire, 
but when it has made up its mind that it desires to do a 
thing it goes about it methodically and never ceases in its 
eiforts until it has made success not only possible but 
absolutely certain. 

So to-day, in the matter of finances, we say to the Con- 
gress of the United States and to the whole country, if the 
Exposition is put in New York its finances, or the success 
of the Exposition which depends upon its finances, are 
absolutely secure. I need not go over that question any 
further. But New York simply says in sober, quiet mood 
to the Congress of the United States, "If you put the Ex- 
position in New York we will see to it that all the money 
that shall be needed to luake it a grand success and the 
grandest success of all the World's Fairs that have ever 
been held up to this time, the money shall be forthcoming, 
whether it be ten or fifteen or twenty or twenty-five million 
dollars. That is absolutely and unquestionably provided 
for in the plan which our Committee has devised and which 
has been exj^lained to you here by Mr. Depew. 

New York comes here vdth no spirit of rivalry or of con- 
tention, and I trust, sii', whatever may be the result of these 
hearings and the legislation that shall come out of it finally, 
that sectionalism will be absolutely abolished from its dis- 
cussions and shall have no influence whatever upon the 
decision of Congress in regard to this matter. Happily now 
the country at large is in a prosperous condition, but so 
far as the interests of this country are concerned, there is 



29 

no North, there is no South, there is no East, there is no 
West ; there is but one United America. And if this Con- 
gress shall decide that this Fair or this Exposition shall be 
held in any other city than that of New York, New York 
will lend to it its aid in every proper and legitimate way to 
make it a success wherever it may be. [Applause.] 

After all the conditions which are necessary for the 
holding of an Exposition of this kind have been met, and 
the main object of the celebration shall have been fulfilled, 
we ask ourselves the question, "What are to be the bene- 
fits from an Exposition of this kind to the people, and how 
are we to conduct it so that the greatest benefit will come 
to the gi-eatest number of our people." 

It is simply on this idea that I desire to detain the Com- 
mittee for a few minutes, and I shall not undertake to 
repeat the arguments which have been made by the distin- 
guished gentlemen who have preceded me. 

I take it then that this Exposition or World's Fair is not 
to be the setting up merely of a commercial or trading 
exposition; that it is not chiefly or mainly for that pur- 
pose that it is to be undertaken; but we hope that there 
shall come from this Exposition when it shall be held a 
great educational power and a movement which shall benefit 
all classes of our people. 

The history of all the World's Fairs that have been held 
heretofore show that they have resulted in the education 
and advancement of the people. The first World's Fair in 
London gave an impetus to the manufacturing interests of 
England such as they had never experienced before. 

And so when we held our great Exposition in Philadel- 
phia in 1876, I think all of this Committee and all who are 
here assembled will admit that the chief benefit which came 
to the people of this new country was in putting new 
life into our industries, the introduction of new industries 
and the improvement and advancement of the industries 
already established. In short that great International 
Exposition at Philadelphia was a great school in which all 



30 

of our skilled artisans and manufacturers and our cajjtains 
of industries learned a thousand and one things, which 
enabled them to go on in the contest with the other manu- 
facturing nations of the world. I believe that the Centen- 
nial Exposition has done as much as any other, if not more 
than any other, influence which has acted upon our people, 
and which makes us to-day the greatest manufacturing- 
nation in the world, as well as the greatest agricultural 
people in the world. 

If this Exposition is to be held, and if this benefit is to 
be derived from it, should not the Fair or the Exposition 
be located at such a point that the largest number of our 
skilled artisans and those who are operating in our indus- 
trial enterprises could have an opportunity to visit it and 
to visit it frequently, or even for a long period, and thus 
derive from it the benefits of which I have spoken, educa- 
tional or technical. 

The City of New York, although it is upon the seaboard, 
can be reached with the present facilities of transportation 
by more than twenty-five millions of people who are within 
twenty hours ride of it. Six millions of people in our own 
State. The same number in New England, New Jersey, 
Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Ohio, are all within 
twenty, or from the most extreme point of Maine, within 
twenty-four hours ride by rail of the City of New York, 
and in these portions of our country which I have men- 
tioned. New York, New England, New Jersey, Pennsyl- 
vania, Maryland, Delaware and Ohio are located to-day, 
not attempting to speak exactly, moi-e than three-fourths 
of all the manufacturing industries of this country; more 
than three- fourths of all the skilled artisans, those engaged 
in the metal trade, in the textile, the fabrics, and in fact all 
the thousand and one industries. Therefore they can very 
easily reach this Exposition, and derive from it the benefits 
of which I have spoken, that of witnessing the handicraft 
of the whole world, than they can at any other single point. 

It seems to me that this view of the case ought to deter- 



31 

mine its location. I take it for granted of this Exposi- 
tion, if it is to be made a success by the raising of a 
sufficient fund to make it so, and if the Federal G-overn- 
ment shall issue invitations to all the nations of the world 
to participate in it, that there will be gathered to this 
Exposition the greatest exhibit of the products of human 
ingenuity and of industry that have ever been brought 
together in any one place in the history of man. 

The Congress of South American nations and our own 
nations which is sitting now in this city, and the results 
which vdll accrue therefrom, will doubtless lead to the 
greatest exhibition from those countries that has ever been 
brought together, and if the rest of the world were to be 
cut off it would still be the greatest that the world has ever 
seen. We are to have upon exhibit the main product of 
every South American and Central Ameiican country to- 
gether with our own, and certainly in such an Exi^osition 
as this we need have no fear whatever that all the great 
manufacturing countries of the world will make the finest 
exhibits of their products and of their industries that can 
be made. 

In short, this Exposition is to be a grand technical school 
to which our artisans and our people can go for instruction. 
It is there that they are to see the finest and the grandest 
productions of man's ingenuity, and it goes without say- 
ing, that when the American people and the American 
artisan shall be brought into actual contact with all these 
l^roductions and the machinery which will be exhibited 
that it will be a source of instruction and pleasure and 
benefit. 

These arguments, I say, ought to be sufficient. If it be 
claimed, however, that the agricultural portion of our peo- 
ple are to derive a great benefit from this Exposition and 
that the agriculture of the country lies west of the Alle- 
ghany mountains and finds its home upon the great prairies 
of the west, my only answer is that New York stands to- 
day first in the list of manufacturing States, producing the 



32 

largest amount of manufactiu'ed products, employing the 
largest number of artisans and employing the largest amount 
of capital, but New York also stands third in the list of 
agricultural States in this country. Only two other States, 
Ohio and Illinois, surpass us in the number of farms. 
New York has over two hundred and forty thousand sep- 
arate farms, and but two other States, Ohio and Illinois, 
have a larger number, and they exceed us only by a few 
thousands. The farms in the east, in New England, in 
New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania, are much 
smaller. The number of acres to the farm is much smaller 
in the east than in the west, and therefore we have a much 
larger number of farmers than are found in any other sec- 
tion of this country. 

But if the farmers need the education and the impetus 
which is to come from this Exposition — and I admit they 
do — I want to plead with our friends of the west for the 
eastern farmer. If there is any class of American citizens 
that is suffering while the country is prosperous it is the 
eastern farmers. In New York we have built a great 
waterway from the lakes to the sea, and we have made it 
free for Illinois and Minnesota, &c., and the result has 
been, sir, as you know, to greatly reduce the value of the 
lands of New York per acre and to reduce thereby the 
value of the products of our farms. 

In conclusion — and I want to be brief — I simply want to 
say a word or two upon the political question which has 
been raised here and elsewhere. I have met with it since I 
came to this city and I have been told by some kind Repub- 
licans that if this Exposition were held in New York it 
would be a dangerous thing for politics in 1892, and that 
it had better go somewhere else or not at all. 

If I believed that this Exposition was to be brought into 
party politics, and party politics were to have anything 
whatever to do with it or control over it, I would be here 
to say to this Committee and to the country and to Con- 
gress, that we had better not have any Exposition. If the 



m 



sixty million people in this country, enjoying the freest 
and best government in the world, are not able to organize 
this grand Exposition and this grand fair which is to cele- 
brate the discovery of this new country, which was so elo- 
quently presented here to-day by Mr. Cockran, then I 
should say that we were scarcely fit for self government. 
But i^olitics are practical, and otlier matters are practical, 
and must be looked at from a practical standpoint. 

New York proposes to manage this Exposition through 
a commission of one hundred and three men, if I remem- 
ber arightly, all of wlioni have been selected and their 
names have been engrafted in a bill which it is proposed to 
enact in a law. 

The names and characters of these men are an absolute 
gnarantee that politics, partisan politics, can have nothing 
and shall have nothing whatever to do with this Exposi- 
tion if it shall beheld in the City of New York. 

How that body of men are divided politically was told 
you this morning. I need not repeat it. I simply want 
to say— speaking foi- myself and as representing a few at 
least of the Repul)lican party of the State of New York -I 
simjily want to sa\ that we are here to pledge ourselves 
that there Avill be nothing of partisan politics in it, and 
that neither political party shall obtain any aid from it in 
any possible way, and if I could not come liere feeling per- 
fectly competent to give that assurance to tiiis Committee 
and to the country, then I would have nothing to do with 
if whatever. I can say most positively for myself and for 
the people I represent, that we have no fear of any such 
disaster as that, and if this grand Exposition shall be 
located in New York by the action of Congress, that the 
people of New York in their sober, quiet way give you 
their i)ledge, sir, that everything that is necessary to be 
done in making it the grandest success of any exposition 
that has ever been iield, will be done by the people of New 
York and that there will be no failure in any. direction 
whatevei'. [Applause. J 



34 

Remarks of James T. Wood. 

Mr. Wood. 

Mr. Chairman ajn'd Gentlemek of the Committee : 
As President of the New York State Agricultural Society, 
Itlesire to ask your consideration of the subject before you 
from the Agriculturists' standpoint. 

I make no plea for the eastern farmer, but I wish you to 
consider the American farmers collectively as they are 
interested in this question. We are a great agricultural 
people. Agriculture is the leading industry of our country, 
and the proposed World's Fair will come very far short of 
truly representing our interests if it be not, in part, a gTeat 
agricultural display. I have given, from my connection 
with agi'icultural interests, considerable attention to the 
matter of agricultural exhibitions, and it has been my 
privilege to study the make-up of many of the great exhibi- 
tions held in Europe in recent years, by my own personal 
observation in attendance upon them, and from this exper- 
ience I can say to you with the utmost confidence that the 
true interests of the agricultural population of the United 
States will be best served by holding this World's Fair in 
the City of New York. It is necessary for you to give but 
a moment's consideration to the fact that the agricultural 
products of every section of our country find their way by 
well established channels to the City of New York already. 
New York is the only city where the agricultural products 
of every district of our country already find their way. 
Other cities are the markets for certain districts only, as 
Chicago for the northwest, St. Louis for the central west, 
etc., but New York receives from all. If an exhibition is 
to include all our agricultural products, it will require a 
very great effort to take those exhibits anywhere but to 
the City of New York, and it will be au unnatural and 
difficult thing to do, whereas the channels of communica- 
tion for these products, whatever they are, are already 
well established to New York. Especially is this true of 



3.=) 



thp great south, and it is not true as affecting the south of 
any other locality where it is proposed that this World s 

Fair shall be held. 

\11 recent exhibitions that are worthy of the name oi 
agricultural displays are founded upon an idea far beyond 
that of a show. They are made educational, so that those 
who attend them may derive some permanent beneht trom 
such attendance ; and if we have such a display we must 
have it to illustrate in a broad way all the products of our 

country. .„ , 

The visitors fiom foreign lands must see what will be 
new to nine out of ten of them, a plot of Indian corn, in 
the most perfect state of cultivation. They, as well as our 
own people, must see a little cotton field during four 
months of the summer when this is practicable and tlius 
learn how our great southern staple is produced. The 
orange groves of Florida must have their representative m 
this World's Fair if it be truly representative of all our 
•agricultural interests. There is no difficulty, if it can be 
taken in hand at once, in having orange trees there in lull 
bearing so that we may sliow as good an orange grove as 
can be found in the State of Florida, and this can only be 
done bv means of water transportation, for the jar incident 
to rail carriage would make it impossible to carry such 
trees to inland states, but they can be taken to New York 
and thus a most interesting display made of the chief pro- 
duct of one of our Southern States. The orange grove is 
an illustration, and I mention it only for that purpose. 
The cotton plants that we require in this display can be 
made ready to be put down in the Exposition in June, and 
visitors can see in a high state of cultivation a field of cot- 
ton as it actually urows in our Southern States. 

Not only is this true of the agricultural interests of our 
own country, but we must take into consideration the 
States of Central and South America. They are agricul- 
tural peoples like ourselves. It is their leading industry 
and they can only make their agricultural exhibit at some 



36 



point on the seaboard. We must have their ooflfee trees 
growing, and the rubber trees of Brazil. Indeed, with 
the Pan-American Congress now in session here, when 
our country is joining hands with the Eepublics of the 
whole Western Hemisphere, from which we hope for 
such beneticent results, it would seem that they can be 
justly treated in this matter only as we provide a loca- 
tion for this World's Fair which they can use, and I 
ask your attention, gentlemen, to the fact that the South 
American and Central American countries can make their 
great exhibit only at a seaboard town. There is no town in 
South America of any considerable size but Avhat already 
has its correspondents and its connections with the City of 
New York. They have such connections with no other 
city oa this Continent. It is easy for them either to send 
their exhibits or to come in person, wliere they have 
acquaintances and where tliey know they can be taken 
care of. Any other city is to them an unknown land, and 
we cannot expect them to make exhibits at any other point. 
Indeed, it would be practically impossible. 

So, Mr. Clunrman and gentlemen of tlie Committee, every 
consideration of the agricultural interests of our people jn 
this country, and of the leading industry of every country 
on the AVestern Hemisphere which the genius and energy 
of Columbus revealed to tlie world, unite in demanding that 
this Exhibition shall be held at that point where the best 
agricultural display can be had; that it be held at that 
point where it will be most truly educational in its effect 
and most truly representative of this paramount industry 
of the whole Western Hemisphere. [Applause.] 



37 



The Memorial of the City of New York was presented by 
Mr. W. E. D. Stokes. 

Mk. Stokes: Mr. Ciiaikmax and Senators — As Secre- 
tary of the Committee on Legislation, I have the honor 
now to present to yon the official document of that 
Committee. It contains the arguments upon which New 
York rests her claim ; the maps of the site ; the eleva- 
tions of tlie Museum Buildings as they will appear when 
completed: a certified list of the subscribei's to the Five 
Million Guarantee Fund, with the names, addresses 
and the amount of each subscription ; a list of the 
General Committees and the Sub-Committees; showing the 
interests and professions they represent, and the proposed 
Act of Congress. The Argument has been compiled under 
the eye of Hon. Abram S. Hewitt, and T regret exceedingly 
that he is unable, on account of sickness, to attend. I now 
present you with the document. 

This closes New York's case. 

Senator Vest : I would like to ask the Secretary a 
question. What is the aggregate amount of the subscrip- 
tions of New York ? 

Mr. Stokes : Up to December 19, 1889, the grand total 
of the guarantee subscription was !?n,071,492. The certificate 
of the Finance Committee reads as follows : 

"The foregoing is a true copy of the subscribers to the 
$5,000,000 Guarantee Fund recorded on the books of the 
Finance Committee from October 2'^ to December 19, 1889, 
both inclusive. 

Samuel B. 1jai3coc'K, Vhuirjuan. 
George Wtlson, Secretary.'''' 

I will add that Mr. Wilson is the Secretary of our Cham- 
ber of Commerce, and Mr. Babcock is an ex-President of 
the Chamber of Commerce. Since that date the subscrip- 
tions have been couung in daily, but they have not yet 
been officially announced. 

The Chairman : The hearing is now closed on the part 
of New Y'^ork. 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 



011 563 893 2 % 



